Ferraro: Taking one for the team?

OK, I know in my last post I said I rarely blog about politics, but here is another case where I feel the need to chime in. I suspect that Geraldine Ferraro’s recent comments about Barack Obama’s race and her subsequent “resignation” from her “honorary” post with the Clinton campaign was all a calculated political maneuver.

It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the whole sordid thing was planned from the outset.

Geraldine Ferraro, first female candidate for Vice President of the United States, with über-cred among feminists and other liberals, says Barack Obama would not be doing so well in the race for President if he weren’t Black.

Ferraro is savvy enough about the politics of division in circa 2008 United States to know that her comments would be met with almost uniform outrage from the liberal establishment. So is the Clinton campaign.

Both she and Clinton are also savvy enough to know that this particular message would resonate with the simmering, suppressed racism roiling just beneath the surface in millions of White Americans.

If there’s one thing Hillary Clinton is, it’s calculating. She stood by her serial adulterer of a husband for the benefit of her own career. She dared not vote against the Iraq war resolutions for fear of looking weak on defense. She has played both sides of the fence on countless issues, rarely taking any discernible stand on anything the least bit controversial.

So, why not have someone with Ferraro’s pedigree criticize the front-running Obama, then disavow her remarks after the damage has been done? It’s a move straight out of Karl Rove’s playbook and, frankly, it disgusts me.

Barack Obama was the editor of the Harvard Law Review, a post that goes, essentially, to the smartest person at Harvard Law. To suggest he’s benefiting from a kind of political affirmative action is ludicrous (as his campaign has rightly characterized it.) That doesn’t keep it from doing real political damage to Obama with the average American voter.

If Clinton “wins” the nomination (which could happen if the “super-delegates” break for her, despite Obama having won more states, more real delegates, and more votes), I’m sitting this one out. Maybe I’ll vote for my cat. Maybe I’ll vote for Mickey Mouse. There is no way in my lifetime that I will vote for Hillary Clinton.

Update:March 15, 2008 Looks like I’m not the only one who feels this way about Hillary. This doesn’t bode well for the tone of this campaign or the hopes of a Democratic president come November.